The tension that existed for much of the 2021 Vikings season wasn’t too hard to see and was illuminated further by Ben Goessling in his post-mortem after both head coach Mike Zimmer and General Manager Rick Spielman were fired after the season ended.
In recent days, we have received even more evidence that at least some of the tension seemed to be directly between the two men who were fired.
While neither has spoken to the local media or done a news conference, Spielman has made a couple of national appearances. In one of them, with Colin Cowherd late last week, the former GM had a pretty interesting quote about teams looking for a head coach — which Patrick Reusse and I talked about on Monday’s Daily Delivery podcast.
“I think the No. 1 thing you’re looking for is that head coach has to have a relationship with that quarterback,” Spielman said on Cowherd’s show. “And can a defensive head coach connect with that quarterback? Now, you know an offensive coach is probably going to be able to because that’s his job. But can a defensive coach do the same thing?”
Zimmer’s relationship with Vikings QB Kirk Cousins reportedly improved in 2021 as the two began weekly film review sessions, but the fact that it took until Year 4 of their partnership is significant.
That Spielman clip was tweeted out and drew a reply from Katarina Elizabeth Miketin, a model reported to be Zimmer’s girlfriend.
Miketin, who has only tweeted 19 times and whose account was dormant for more than a year until recently, replied on Saturday: “What about the GM having a relationship with the organization? Not talking to your coach for three months? Rick, Back-peddling (sic) and “spin” have always been your “game”. You should be embarrassed by your media blitz of, “it wasn’t my fault”.
What about the GM having a relationship with the organization? Not talking to your coach for three months? Rick, Back-peddling and “spin” have always been your “game”. You should be embarrassed by your media blitz of, “it wasn’t my fault”.
— Katarina Elizabeth Miketin (@KMiketin) January 29, 2022
And that was three days after she replied to a tweet about a Spielman podcast appearance — during which he lamented the revolving door at offensive coordinator under Zimmer — with this: “Rick, How can you build a team when you refuse to talk to the coach and don’t show up? You talk a lot to everyone else, just not the ones who mattered when the organization needed unity. YOU caused separation. Your gossip needs to stop. Let’s talk facts.”
Most of this is just he said, she said at this point as the Vikings have moved on to new GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and soon will hire a new head coach. But it is interesting to hear this come out in retrospect.
Since we still haven’t heard from Zimmer, perhaps I need to amend the five questions I would like to ask him and add this one: What does he really think of Spielman?